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Red Beans
1 pint of beans, I onion, I carrot, ¼ pound of bacon, 1 teaspoonful of sugar, Salt and pepper to taste.
Soak the beans over night in cold water; in the morning, wash, drain, put into a kettle with the bacon, onion, carrot and sufficient cold water to cover; add an eighth of a teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda, and boil gently until the beans are tender (about one hour). When done, drain, put them into a vegetable dish, add two ounces of butter, and salt and pepper; serve at once. The bacon may be cut in thin slices and used as a garnish.
A straightforward pot of dried beans simmered with aromatics and bacon, then dressed with butter. The technique is sound; only the measures and one additive need translating.
- A pint of beansDried beans were sold and measured by volume. A pint is about 14 oz or 400 g of dried red kidney or borlotti beans, which yields roughly 6 cups cooked and serves four to six as a side.
- The bacon quantityThe bacon is written as "14 pound," which is a quarter pound (4 oz / 115 g) — a whole 14 lb would swamp a pint of beans. Use a thick unsliced piece or a chunk of slab bacon so it can be lifted out and sliced for the garnish.
- Kidney beans must boil, not just simmerRaw red kidney beans contain phytohaemagglutinin, which an overnight soak alone does not destroy. Drain the soaking water, cover with fresh water, and keep the pot at a genuine rolling boil for at least ten minutes before dropping to the gentle simmer the recipe calls for.
- The sodaAn eighth of a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda softens the skins in hard water and speeds cooking. It also dulls the colour and can turn beans mushy and faintly soapy; with modern beans it is optional, and more than that pinch is a mistake.
- One hour is optimisticSoaked beans of recent harvest may be tender in an hour, but older stock routinely takes 90 minutes to two hours. Start testing at the hour mark and judge by bite, not by the clock.
- Salt timingSalt is added at the end here, which is the old rule. In practice salting the cooking water lightly from the start seasons the beans through and does not prevent them softening; hold back the final seasoning until the bacon's salt has been accounted for.
- The carrot and onionThe recipe does not say how to cut them, and they are not mentioned again when the beans are dished up, so they appear to be there for flavour. Fish them out before serving, or dice them small at the outset if you would rather eat them.
- The butterTwo ounces (55 g) folded into hot, well-drained beans is what makes the dish. Add it off the heat and turn the beans gently so they do not break up.
Dried beans were a cheap winter protein in many European and American households, and this treatment — soaked overnight, simmered with a piece of pork, an onion and a carrot, then enriched with butter — is a plain domestic form of a pot of beans that appears in one guise or another across a great many kitchens. The pinch of bicarbonate is a marker of the period: cooks were taught that soda softened skins and shortened the long fuel-hungry boil, advice repeated in household manuals well into the twentieth century before it fell out of favour for the flavour and texture it costs. The instruction to slice the bacon thin and lay it round the dish is offered as an option rather than a requirement.